Grenfell Tower Fire
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An old building (sometime in the mid 70's) but refurbed in 2015. It is owned by the local council, the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, but they outsource management to a private contractor, the Kensington and Chelsea Tenant Management Organisation. The cynic in me suggests that whoever wins the tender to oversee the council's properties is chosen mainly down to budget and it might be difficult to make ends meet on such tight margins. It reminds me of a quote from John Glen in relation tore-entering the Earth's atmosphere for the first time - something along the lines of "All I could think of was that each component of my spacecraft had been supplied by the cheapest contractor".
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Some stuff coming out now which is just staggering. All courtesy of the BBC:-
Construction firm Rydon, which carried out the refurbishment, initially said in a statement that the work met "all fire regulations" - the wording was omitted in a later statement.
The block - which was built in 1974 - did not have a sprinkler system. Under current law, all new residential blocks over 30m high must have sprinkler systems fitted. There is no legal requirement for local authorities to retrofit sprinklers to tower blocks. Ronnie King, honorary secretary of the All-Party Fire Safety and Rescue Group, told LBC there were about 4,000 tower blocks that did not have fire sprinklers fitted into them. He said after the fire in Lakanal House there had been a "recommendation, which was down to each local council and landlords to determine the appropriateness" of the lack of fire sprinklers in some blocks.
Some residents have also reported not hearing fire alarms. Alarms will often go off only on the floor affected, according to fire expert Elfyn Edwards.
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@Catogrande said in Horrific Fire in London:
Some stuff coming out now which is just staggering. All courtesy of the BBC:-
Construction firm Rydon, which carried out the refurbishment, initially said in a statement that the work met "all fire regulations" - the wording was omitted in a later statement.
The block - which was built in 1974 - did not have a sprinkler system. Under current law, all new residential blocks over 30m high must have sprinkler systems fitted. There is no legal requirement for local authorities to retrofit sprinklers to tower blocks. Ronnie King, honorary secretary of the All-Party Fire Safety and Rescue Group, told LBC there were about 4,000 tower blocks that did not have fire sprinklers fitted into them. He said after the fire in Lakanal House there had been a "recommendation, which was down to each local council and landlords to determine the appropriateness" of the lack of fire sprinklers in some blocks.
Some residents have also reported not hearing fire alarms. Alarms will often go off only on the floor affected, according to fire expert Elfyn Edwards.
Going to be interesting how this pans out.
If the cladding was legal, if the work undertaken was done to spec and signed off by the council then who do they prosecute?
What's really scary for people over there and other parts of the world is how much of this product is out there.
Not all will be wrapped around a 40 year old tower block with no sprinklers, dodgy fire systems and lax safety guidelines. But still.
Sounds like it was a perfect mix of what could go wrong did go wrong.
So heads roll, the council? Or does it go all the way back to the manufacturor of the cladding. -
@Virgil said in Horrific Fire in London:
@Catogrande said in Horrific Fire in London:
Some stuff coming out now which is just staggering. All courtesy of the BBC:-
Construction firm Rydon, which carried out the refurbishment, initially said in a statement that the work met "all fire regulations" - the wording was omitted in a later statement.
The block - which was built in 1974 - did not have a sprinkler system. Under current law, all new residential blocks over 30m high must have sprinkler systems fitted. There is no legal requirement for local authorities to retrofit sprinklers to tower blocks. Ronnie King, honorary secretary of the All-Party Fire Safety and Rescue Group, told LBC there were about 4,000 tower blocks that did not have fire sprinklers fitted into them. He said after the fire in Lakanal House there had been a "recommendation, which was down to each local council and landlords to determine the appropriateness" of the lack of fire sprinklers in some blocks.
Some residents have also reported not hearing fire alarms. Alarms will often go off only on the floor affected, according to fire expert Elfyn Edwards.
Going to be interesting how this pans out.
If the cladding was legal, if the work undertaken was done to spec and signed off by the council then who do they prosecute?
What's really scary for people over there and other parts of the world is how much of this product is out there.
Not all will be wrapped around a 40 year old tower block with no sprinklers, dodgy fire systems and lax safety guidelines. But still.
Sounds like it was a perfect mix of what could go wrong did go wrong.
So heads roll, the council? Or does it go all the way back to the manufacturor of the cladding.Like all of these things there will be a huge investigation that can't find any one fault or person to pin it on and everyone will go merrily on their way.
I get that guidelines were followed but those guidelines didn't write themselves. Somewhere someone signed them off for use that has proven to be totally inadequate. -
Yup just look at the CTV building collapse at the 2011 quake, over 100 died. Big concerns about its structural integrity and if it had a design flaw.
6 years on and no one has ever been charged or even seriously investigated for and failings. Gets brought up from time to time but nothing comes of it. -
@Virgil they were saying there are buildings in NZ with this cladding too.
I'm not a designer, inventor or anything flash like that, but you woulda thought when making a product for buildings such as these, being fire retardant would be a key thing to be testing, no?
It defies belief that a product would not go through rigorous fire/heat testing before being allowed on the market. I mean even if looking at shortcuts to keep costs down, this is still a key ingredient when you are selling the product!
Surely not a 'whats the worst that could happen' shrug when testers say this will burn quickly.
In another thread I mentioned there are insulation products in the NZ market, and some local councils will not approve building consents when that product is used, but some will....
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Installation of the cladding could still have been a factor and if that's the case then someone will get the finger pointed. From what has been said this cladding is insulation with a waterproof shell attached. There is a gap between the two and witnesses say that once the fire took hold it shot up and out presumably through the gap and the draw of air through it.
When the product is installed it is meant to have some "fire strips" put in place to stop this draft effect from happening. If they weren't there.....
The cladding certainly looks to the untrained eye as a major contributor though. It is how a small fire spread around a building and by-passed all the other fire safety measures. -
Often the impact of such stories falls away after a few days... but this is one of those where I feel no less a sense of helpless frustration and sheer fury than I did on day one. I've never lived in an apartment, so I just took things like sprinklers, working alarms, and messages to not sit and wait as a given.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=11876701
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@Crucial said in Horrific Fire in London:
Installation of the cladding could still have been a factor and if that's the case then someone will get the finger pointed. From what has been said this cladding is insulation with a waterproof shell attached. There is a gap between the two and witnesses say that once the fire took hold it shot up and out presumably through the gap and the draw of air through it.
When the product is installed it is meant to have some "fire strips" put in place to stop this draft effect from happening. If they weren't there.....
The cladding certainly looks to the untrained eye as a major contributor though. It is how a small fire spread around a building and by-passed all the other fire safety measures.Studied a wee bit of this during engineering undergrad, and yep that's basically it.
There will always be a gap between original outer wall and cladding (in fact, there is supposed to be one to improve insulation / prevent damp). This creates a chimney effect in a fire which is very effective at spreading flames. This is supposed to be mitigated by fire break around every external window/balcony and between each floor. The fire breaks are supposed to bridge the air gap and penetrate right through the cladding to the outer facade. It looks as though these were not in place at Grenfell, which is criminally negligent.
As for the flammability of the cladding, there will always be different options that are more or less fire-retardant, and commensurately more or less expensive. No prizes for guessing what they wen't with in this refit, given its social housing owned by a cash-strapped council, and managed by a for-profit private company.
Horrendous.
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@TeWaio said in Horrific Fire in London:
@Crucial said in Horrific Fire in London:
Installation of the cladding could still have been a factor and if that's the case then someone will get the finger pointed. From what has been said this cladding is insulation with a waterproof shell attached. There is a gap between the two and witnesses say that once the fire took hold it shot up and out presumably through the gap and the draw of air through it.
When the product is installed it is meant to have some "fire strips" put in place to stop this draft effect from happening. If they weren't there.....
The cladding certainly looks to the untrained eye as a major contributor though. It is how a small fire spread around a building and by-passed all the other fire safety measures.Studied a wee bit of this during engineering undergrad, and yep that's basically it.
There will always be a gap between original outer wall and cladding (in fact, there is supposed to be one to improve insulation / prevent damp). This creates a chimney effect in a fire which is very effective at spreading flames. This is supposed to be mitigated by fire break around every external window/balcony and between each floor. The fire breaks are supposed to bridge the air gap and penetrate right through the cladding to the outer facade. It looks as though these were not in place at Grenfell, which is criminally negligent.
As for the flammability of the cladding, there will always be different options that are more or less fire-retardant, and commensurately more or less expensive. No prizes for guessing what they wen't with in this refit, given its social housing owned by a cash-strapped council, and managed by a for-profit private company.
Horrendous.
Last night it was conceded that adding sprinklers to the refit would have only cost £200k extra in a £10M project. Outstanding that someone from somewhere made the decision that it wasn't worth spending that especially as the inquest into the 2013 fire recommended it.
A building standards lobby group also shared videos of tests they had been showing the Govt of how this cladding catches fire. They simply placed a recycle box with general paper and boxes etc next to the cladding and lit it. It went like stink pretty quickly.
The worst comment I heard was that the ministry officials kept rebuffing the lobbyists in talks by saying 'it's not as if anyone is dying in these buildings'
Talk about a clusterfuck.
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@Crucial I would like to "like" that last post but it doesn't seem right. if you now edit: (know - I was typing in a frenzy, just so fucked off with the situation itself and then the political grandstanding) what I mean.
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$200000 sounds very cheap to install a sprinkler system in a 27 storey building .
I'd say the prick that made the calls about the shortcuts is sorting out a plane ticket to parts unknown if he hasn't done so already. Unless this goes the way of the CTV building and there's lots of talk and reports and no one behind bars 6 years on.
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@jegga said in Horrific Fire in London:
$200000 sounds very cheap to install a sprinkler system in a 27 storey building .
I'd say the prick that made the calls about the shortcuts is sorting out a plane ticket to parts unknown if he hasn't done so already. Unless this goes the way of the CTV building and there's lots of talk and reports and no one behind bars 6 years on.
Yet. Alan Reay must be sweating in his jocks...
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@jegga said in Horrific Fire in London:
@nzzp excellent .
The designer I feel sorry for. Reay... well, not so much. What really rips my nightie is that it appears that Reay came in late to the party and leaned heavily on the Council to approve the build after concerns were raised.
The 80s were a bit wild west at times, with minimal regulation and some 'economic' designs in the pre-crash boom.
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@jegga said in Horrific Fire in London:
$200000 sounds very cheap to install a sprinkler system in a 27 storey building .
I'd say the prick that made the calls about the shortcuts is sorting out a plane ticket to parts unknown if he hasn't done so already.
The irony being, cutting a couple of hundred gorillas from the project probably got him a handsome bonus, which he used for a plane ticket to go on holiday
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@jegga said in Horrific Fire in London:
$200000 sounds very cheap to install a sprinkler system in a 27 storey building .
I'd say the prick that made the calls about the shortcuts is sorting out a plane ticket to parts unknown if he hasn't done so already. Unless this goes the way of the CTV building and there's lots of talk and reports and no one behind bars 6 years on.
That was the number but pounds not dollars. I guess it was additional cost as they were doing a lot of work anyway.
It would probably be a pretty basic setup and, in this case, probably not have halted the spread on the outside but who knows how many lives would have been saved.
